2013 Pre-fall offers a dual glimpse of what designers see as more likely items that will sell blended with a few samples of where their fall/winter collections may venture to next. For many, the 90s story seems to be the more likely direction but for some the exploration into modern design seems the more preferred routs. While the stiffer and structured materials are aplenty, some are looking towards a softer side.

There is no denying the collective defensiveness that many feel in these times. Things we took for granted, ranging from the security of predictable employment and tenure to reliability of time-honored institutions and social structures and even our environment, have betrayed our trust. The only constant is change and as resilient a species we may be, we have our limits. Faced with a society that rewards control our repression of fears and concerns is reaching a tipping point, one that can wear on the psyche. In turn, we gravitate towards comfort in our daily lives.

For some this may be in food, such as the rise of comfort food during the 90s when the acceleration of technological advancement and millennial fears such as Y2K reached a crescendo. For others, it became a choice to dispense with armour in favor of clothing that appealed to softness. During the mid-90s, fashion incorporated textiles more associated with the bedroom as a quest for things that felt comforting on the skin become more popular. Lingerie textiles and pajama flannel became more prevalent.

How fitting that, as the 90s is re-embraced (and, as some fashion critics will point out, is something we never left) that some designers are looking towards more comforting textiles, of course expressing these in more modern aesthetics such as architectural cuts and creative textile assembly. These were seen in more creativelines from Thakoon Addition, where the slouch factor embraced ease and casualness, and Zero + Maria Cornejo, which featured knits in more comforting expression of modern execution. Here , while looking towards now and not the past that the cuts declare, the textiles make it easier on the journey towards the future.

Pringle of Scotland, while retaining the hardness of cut, had textiles that were gentler amidst the assemblage of varying fabrics mirroring the piecemeal collage reflecting our hybrid of cultures and influences. Theyskin’s Theory, while completely body-con, also had softness in many of the materials. There was casualness in the ease of the day-to-day, tailored for less fuss without losing the essentials of modernity. Strong as these lines are, again they provide an intimate comfort in one’s daily regime.

With everything we have before us, hear about and experience ad infinitum in our social networks, our multi-media, and our connectivity, some are signaling that feeling good, and not just looking good, has merit again. Sometimes we just want the simplicity of feeling good, and amidst the collections unfolding so far some designers are letting us know that they hear the need, responding in kind. And isn’t that comforting.